


Fucking Hand Cramp

by totallyrandom



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, College Student Stiles, Fluff and Humor, Innuendo, M/M, Misunderstandings, Or Is It?, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 14:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15196571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totallyrandom/pseuds/totallyrandom
Summary: Stiles is on the penultimate when the phone rings. He slackens his grip and stretches out his right hand against his thigh while answering with his left. Apparently this was a poor life choice.“Hey, Der! … Ow, fuck!”“What’s wrong?”“Fucking hand cramp,” he whines. “Dammit, and I’m so close.”“Stiles,” Derek sighs.





	Fucking Hand Cramp

**Author's Note:**

> Here. Have a silly thing.

Stiles hits send and lets out a long sigh. The annotated bibliography for his Abnormal Psych paper has been a beast. He’s looking forward to the topic being out of sight and out of mind for the next week. Hells, yeah! It’s only 6:30 and his to-do list for the day is fucking done. 

He’s so hungry that he slurps down two packets of shitty ramen in record time and still has another 15 minutes before his weekly phone call from Derek.

He scrunches his face up in thought and decides he can totally get a few more in before then. Quotas make him motivated. It helps that he actually gives himself gold stars for finishing. He’s on the penultimate when the phone rings.[1] He slackens his grip and stretches out his right hand against his thigh while answering with his left. Apparently this was a poor life choice.

“Hey, Der! … Ow, fuck!” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Fucking hand cramp,” he whines. “Dammit, and I’m so close.”

“Stiles,” Derek sighs.

“No! I can do this. Just gotta push through.” 

“Stiles.” 

“What? Ah, come on. … Yeah, almost there.”

“Stiles!” Derek growls. 

“What, Derek? Just ... hold on.”

“Seriously? While we’re on the phone? You can’t wait?” 

“Sorry? But Magda just found out she got the internship at the Library of Congress this summer, so I’m meeting her for a beer or seven at The Alibi after this, so ...” 

“Seriously?” Derek mumbles. 

“… obviously I’ll be too trashed after to be good for anything.”

Derek chokes but tries to cover it with a cough. “Just go. Call me tomorrow instead.” 

“Dude, I plan on being waaaaaaay hung over and sleeping most of the day, but yeah. I guess I’ll just put on some tunes and do some hand exercises and get back to it. If you’re not going to talk to me tonight, I can just take it slow.” 

Derek hangs up without replying. He texts Stiles telling him to be safe tonight. Stiles calls him back a few minutes later. 

“What, Stiles.”

“Dude, I tried texting back left-handed and I just can’t. But I wanted to tell you that we’re taking a Lyft, so we’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry about me, gramps.” 

“4 years.” 

“Huh?”

“I’m only 4 years older than you. Asshole.” 

“You’retheasshole,” Stiles mumbles around the pen in his mouth. The phone jammed between his ear and shoulder is inching closer and closer to falling. 

“What?” 

“Ow. So close, dude! I’ve just gotta … Argh!” Stiles yelps as his phone hits the floor. He keeps going as he searches the floor with his foot, trying to end the call with his toe as he finally finishes with a gasp. 

He groans in relief and forces his fingers to uncurl. “Shiiiiiiiit. I’m definitely going to have to take a couple days off,” he moans. “Oh, if you’re still there, hang up because I’m gonna pass out. Bye!” He tips over from his computer chair onto the mattress and lets himself doze for a few minutes, hoping the cramp will work itself out.

Derek hangs up when he hears Stiles snore. “Fuck my life.”

 

***

 

When it hits 7 pm the next night and he hasn’t heard anything, Derek begins to worry. He deep cleans the fridge. Scrubs the stovetop. He even considers defrosting the freezer. Finally he just sucks it up and calls. When Stiles answers, Derek can tell he’s just waking up.

“Heeeeeeeeey. Last night was epic but now I can’t tell which hurts worse: my hand or my head.”

“I don’t need to know any more about your hand.”

“Well, it was for a good cause at least.”

“What does that ... No. I don’t want to … No. Did find anything useful about the selkies?”

“Oh, my week was pretty brutal with school but I have a couple days off now, so it’s all good. How was your week, Big D?”

“Fine.” 

“Yeah you are.” 

“Stiles. Did the university archive have anything useful about selkies or not?”

“Ummmmm … You said it wasn’t urgent? I honestly though you just asked about it to get me off the phone last week.” 

“Why would I … Fine. When you get it, just text me. But sooner would be good.” 

“Dude, no. That’d take forever to type out and my hand is seriously fucked. Not even sure I can type on a real keyboard right now. It’s better than last night, at least, but my hand’s pretty fucked.” 

Derek just closes his eyes and sighs, resigned.

“Seriously, I look like an octogenarian with arthritis. I had to drink lefty last night. It wasn’t pretty. My jeans probably still reek of Natty Light.”

“Fine. Just call then. Whatever.” 

“Damn,” Stiles mumbles. “This fucking hurts. I think I bruised my thumb somehow? How did I even … ”

“I really don’t need to know, Stiles.”

“I guess I need to change my grip or something? Maybe it’s a bad angle? It feels fine at the time, but clearly I need to start doing something differently.” 

“Really, I should get back to … ” 

Stiles sighs. “I wish I were ambidextrous. I tried, you know, in middle school. Did I ever tell you about that? Dude, it did noooooooooooooot end well.”

“Stiles,” Derek whines, but he doesn’t hang up. 

“Maybe I should try lefty again. I’ve got at least an hour before my Skype with Scott. … ” 

“Tell him a third selkie showed up this morning.” 

“I’m not Western Union, dude.”

“Stiles.”

“Fine. But only if you stay on the line with me while I try this. So boring.” 

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Derek mutters. 

“One, I’m offended that you have no sympathy for me.” 

“Why? It’s not like you have to do it. I’m sure you’d survive a few days without.” 

“No way. It’s about the only thing keeping my anxiety in check right now. School has been a wrinkly old nutsack, and then all the shit happening in this country. I seriously almost had a panic attack during the last Friday-afternoon news dump.” 

“Are you ok?” 

“Aww, you do care about me.” 

“Shut up, Stiles.” 

“Not much of a phone call if I don’t talk, dude. So stop interrupting. Where was I? … Right: two, aren’t you interested in whether I can do it? I mean, I thought lacrosse would have improved my manual dexterity, but last night would indicate otherwise.” 

“Are you kidding me,” Derek spits out through clenched teeth.

“I mean, my regular handwriting is already almost illegible, so … probably a lost cause,” he sighs. 

“What.”

“Uh, what what?” 

“Handwriting?” Derek asks tentatively. 

“Yeah? Haven’t you been listening at all?”

“I’ve been trying not to.”

“Dude, we don’t have to do this weekly phone call thing. It was your idea, oh great alpha.” 

“Listening while you …” Derek clears his throat. “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“What else am I supposed to talk about? Pretty much all I do is go to class, drink beer, and this. I mean, it’s by far the most interesting. And I’m totally roping you into it next time you visit, so just deal with it.”

Derek squawks.

“Yeah. I saw instructions online for setting it up as like a big group event. A party thing. I can just organize it and then like sit around and evaluate everyone and give them tips and shit. Give my own hand a rest.” 

“WHAT.”

“Yup. This is happening, dude. And you have to be here. You don’t have to get in on the action, I guess, if you don’t want. We can just hang out and catch up and let everyone else do all the work. But you have to at least help me pick up the snacks and shit. It’ll be too much for me to carry.” 

“Why are there snacks?” 

“These things usually run for like 2 hours. No one shows up for anything without snacks.”

“No.” 

“What do you mean, no?”

“I’m not going to drive three hours to sit around and watch other people …”

“It’s not as boring as it sounds. And I haven’t seen you in forever. Please, Derek?”

“No. I’ll com-- … I mean visit. I’ll visit. Not for that. Later.”

“Huh?” 

“I’ll visit another time.”

“Right but … what?”

“What what?”

“What’s with the … Why are you being weird, Derek?” 

“Thought you said I’m permanently weird.” 

“Yeah, but not like word-choice weird. This is like weeeeeeird, even for you.” 

Derek swallows hard and just gives up the pretense. “You know why, Stiles.”

“ … No?” 

Derek sighs, half relieved, half disappointed. “I have to go. Just … think about the … party. Once the video is out there, it’ll never go away.” 

“Why the fuck would anyone video a bunch of people sitting around writing political postcards? I know they say there’s a fetish for pretty much everything but, seriously dude, I don’t think they meant that literally.”

Derek’s quiet on the other end of the line. 

“Hello?” Stiles pulls the phone away from his ear to check that they’re still connected. “Are you still there? I can’t hear anything.”

“You …” Derek clears his throat. “You have a hand cramp from writing postcards.”

“ … Yes. We literally talked about this yesterday.”

“Postcards.” 

“Oh, did I not tell you what they’re for? It’s a Get Out the Vote thing. It’s like the only thing keeping my panic attacks under control. Like, not even joking. At all.” 

Stiles can barely hear Derek say, “Postcards. Hand cramps from writing postcards. … Fucking hell.” 

“Hey, I was writing like 50 a day at first! See how long you’d hold up at that pace. Never mind. Fucking werewolves and your stamina for days. And never getting hand cramps. Right? No fucking cramps anywhere ever?” 

“Not r---” 

“ … and so …. Huh. No muscle exhaustion. So probably like no fucking refractory period either, right?” 

Derek chokes.

“Oh my god, I’m right, aren’t I? … How could Scott not tell me that! … I need to know these things. … For science. And for making the right decisions to live my best life. God, I need to … Hey, did you meet Murad when you were up here? I think he might be a wolf. I wonder if he --”

Derek growls. 

“Don’t get all territorial, D. I promise not to run off with another pack.”

Stiles hears a crunch and then a beep when the call cuts off. He calls Derek back but it rolls straight to voicemail so he gives up. 

He thinks maybe he should get that selkie research done before Derek calls back, but he ends up in an Amazon recommendation hole looking for things to help with his hand cramps.

Two hours later, Derek trips on a box coming into Stiles’s off-campus shithole apartment. He looks around to find boxes everywhere, filled with postcards and stamps and pens and stickers and who-the-hell-knows-what. 

“What the hell, Stiles?” Derek yells.

Stiles stumbles out of the bedroom in just his boxers and with wild hair. 

“What the hell, dude?” 

Derek gasps and takes a step backward, knocking into another box. 

“Sorry, just go sit down and I’ll clear some of this out of the … Fuck. I have so many supplies and I can’t even fucking write right now. And I spent the rest of my booze and food money on this shit. I’ve been eating like 5 packs of ramen a day. My blood pressure is not good, Derek. Between the sodium and the anger over everything in the news. I dunno if I’m gonna survive this fucking administration. No joke, man.” 

Derek doesn’t even know where to begin, so he just flops down in the ratty chair in the corner and stares anywhere but Stiles’s bare chest. And legs. And arms. And … He squeezes his eyes closed and tips his head back on the headrest, knocking loose something that clatters to the floor. 

Derek opens his eyes to see what it is, but all he sees is Stiles’s ass as he bends over to pick it up.

“Hey, thanks for finding this.” 

“ … Wha …” 

“See, it’s a little box with a check mark in it.” Stiles leans in to show him, but all he sees is the pale skin of Stiles throat. “Like an election ballot. Cute, right?” 

Derek gulps and forces his eyes toward Stiles’s outstretched hand. “Jesus,” he mutters.

“Dude, it’s just a stamp.” Stiles backs away to toss it into one of the boxes and then gets distracted trying to tidy up. “Sorry everything’s such a mess. … Ow, shit. Hand cramp again.” 

Stiles resorts to pushing things around with his foot, finally noticing that he’s not really dressed. “Oh my god,” he mutters, barely louder than an exhale.

He sprints toward the bedroom and slams the door shut before grabbing the nearest clothes he can find. But his jeans still smell like stale beer and everything else is in the hamper because he decided earlier in the week to try to be an adult about laundry, and of-fucking-course it backfired.

Stiles just gives up and throws himself on the bed and pulls a pillow over his face, wallowing in frustration and embarrassment. 

It’s at least 10 minutes later when Derek shakes himself from his stupor and gets up to knock on the bedroom door. 

“Go away, Derek. I’m busy dying. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.” 

Derek laughs as he opens the door, but he’s not prepared for the sight before him.

Stiles sits up with a yelp and throws the pillow at Derek unsuccessfully then yelps and grabs his hand. “Fuckity fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuck.” He tries to flex his fingers but just gives up and collapses forward, arms hanging between his knees. 

Derek sits next to him on the bed and pulls Stiles’s arm over to rest on his knees, pulling the pain away as he massages the cramped hand. Stiles’s moan is deep and filthy and Derek clenches his jaw so hard he’s in danger of breaking a tooth. But he breathes through it and focuses on the distraction of the leeched pain. 

Stiles lets out a long sigh and slumps onto Derek’s shoulder. “Shit, dude. You’re better than Advil.”

Derek snorts but keeps massaging his hand, grateful to have something to focus on other than the heat seeping into his side. He lets out a disgruntled sound when Stiles pulls away. 

“Thanks, man. That’s dangerously good. But, um, my hand has been fucked for like a week, and I don’t want things to get messy here, so … yeah. TMI. Sorry.”

The laugh bursts out of Derek. He can’t help it.

“ … Oooooookay. I’m just gonna …” Stiles decides beery clothes are better than nothing and escapes with them to the bathroom. When he gets back, Derek wrinkles his nose at the smell.

“Sorry. Laundry day. Like two weeks ago, really.”

Derek tries but he can’t get past it. “I’m just …” He strides back out to the couch. 

Stiles pushes the door closed with his foot and hangs his head for a second before stripping everything off, glad to find he actually has three pairs of clean underwear, and one of them doesn’t even have any holes. He puts that on and makes a toga of his spare sheet before rejoining Derek.[2] 

“You want something to drink? I’ve got water or green crap with lots of chemicals in it. So, do you want some water?” 

“No.”

“Right. Ok.” Stiles gestures toward the table. “That enormous book on the bottom has like three pages about selkies, but none of it seems that useful. The one above it has like a paragraph and isn’t really any more helpful. And the one on top just says no one has ever credibly reported seeing one. So, that’s kind of terrifying. Like, either you’re wrong and they’re not selkies, in which case what the fuck are they? Or they are selkies and people just don’t usually live to tell about it. So, you know … yikes.” 

“It’s fine. Scott called when I was barely out of Beacon County to say they’d moved on.”

“But you still drove up.” 

Derek shrugs. Stiles stares at him for a moment but gives up, dropping next to him on the couch. Derek straightens his spine and nods once, answering only himself. He reaches out and gently pulls Stiles’s hand toward him and setting it palm-up on his knee so he can trace a finger along it. 

Stiles chuckles. “Tickles.” But he doesn’t pull away. 

“I can’t believe …” Derek shakes his head ruefully. “Postcards.” 

“Yeah. I think I’m gonna have to take a break for a couple weeks.” 

“I’m sure you can find another way to de-stress.” 

“Maybe.” He flexes his hand, but Derek just stretches it back out and resumes his finger’s meandering path. Stiles gasps. “Dude, if you keep doing that, in a minute I’m not even gonna need to use it for stress relief.”

“Damn it, Stiles.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to … Sorry.”

“Do you even know what you sound like?”

“Huh?”

“I thought … but you were just … And I wanted to …”

Stiles is trembling, letting out a shaky laugh. “Care to, uh, finish your sentence? Like, any of them? Because it sounds like … But of course you don’t … I mean, do you … Because I …”

“Now who’s not finishing their sentences?”

“Oh, fuck you.” 

“Yeah.” Derek doesn’t mean to say it, but he repeats it again anyway. “Yeah, Stiles.”

Stiles gasps. “Oh, fuck me! Really? But … how … but ... when … but …” 

Derek pulls Stiles into his lap, biting the pad of Stiles’s thumb gently before sucking it into his mouth.

“Thank god for postcards,” is the last thing Stiles manages to say before he’s lost to only gasps and moans.

 

***

 

Years later, Stiles still guffaws anytime someone says "postcard."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my bitching and moaning from the fucking hand cramps writing [Postcards to Voters](http://postcardstovoters.org/) gives me. I mean, if I were a reasonable person and just wrote 5 postcards for each campaign (or even just 5 postcards a couple times a week), it’d be fine. But I have never been called reasonable, so … 
> 
> Anyway, these postcards (though painful if not done in moderation) really do help keep my anxiety at bay every time this fucking presidential administration does another fucking evil thing (which is daily). 
> 
> It’s really important for Democrats to win as many elections as possible at every level of government from local School Board to US Senate. Help out if you can: <http://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer>
> 
> (And, yes, this is a big reason why I haven’t made progress on my ongoing stories. Doing the best I can with the emotional energy I have.)
> 
> [1] [Penultimate](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penultimate)
> 
> [2] Toga! (It’s been a million years since I’ve seen _Animal House_.)  
> 


End file.
